MOUNTSTUART ELPHINSTONE.* WE are very glad to see ample justice

done, although rather late in the day, and even now in a somewhat lumbering fashion, to the memory of Mountstuart Elphinstone, Resident at Poonah during one of the great Mahratta wars, and Governor of Bombay from 1819 to 1827. For Elphinstone, although he was not a man of genius, and although the circumstances in which he found himself were not calculated to bring out genius even had he been gifted with it, approached perhaps nearer to the model of an Anglo- Indian official than any other man—and we are not forgetful of the Stracheys and the Mmaros, the Metcalfes and the Malcolms of his own time, or of the Lawrences and Normans and Maim who succeeded them—whose career forms an integral pctrtion of the history of British rule in Hindostan. He holds a middle place between the magnificent buccaneers of the struggling and victorious days of the Company and the prancing proconsuls of whom it is evident India would see too many, if the rule of the Crown were to mean Imperialism. Mounstuart Elphinstone, as revealed in the pages of Sir T. E. Colebrooke and Mr. Forrest, and to a certain extent in the appreciative characterisations of Sir John Kaye, belongs to the class of servants of the State of whom George Washington is the hero and type. Sir James Mackin- tosh, who was introduced to him by Sir John Malcolm, wrote of him in his journal in 1811,—" He has a very fine understand- ing, with the greatest modesty and simplicity of character?' Write this large, and you have George Washington, who would have done a world of quiet good as the first of Transatlantic country gentlemen, had not a crisis developed and placed at the service of his countrymen the resources of his fortitude, his patience, his disciplined sagacity. Had Elphinstone not been a younger son, he would probably never have been heard of, except in a limited circle, as a model squire and justice of the peace, upright, amiable, and contented, with no weaknesses except a love of the chase and of Xenophon's Memorabilia. As things turned out, he spent the best part of his life in what, for a man who had the run of London society, must be con- sidered retirement. His active life closed with his resignation of the Governorship of Bombay, in 1827, when he was only forty- eight, and in his prime. Yet he had many "chances" offered him during the period, nearly a generation, that was allowed him. If, when he died he was forgotten, the fault was his own, not that of the general public, or of the political and diplomatic authorities in London. He might have had a seat in Parliament. He might have been Ambassador to the Persian Court. He was twice offered the Governor-Generalship of India; and Sir John Kaye, writing of him shortly after his death, said, probably with truth.as well as with enthusiasm, "that, when in 1835 he was invited to proceed to India as the successor of Lord William Bentinck, he could not persuade himself to obey the call, was perhaps the greatest calamity that has ever befallen cur Indian Empire. It is no exaggeration to assert that had he reigned in India instead of Lord Auckland, there would have been no Afghan War, and therefore no Sepoy Rebellion." Elphinstone always pleaded ill-health as his excuse for declining to return to political or diplomatic work ; and of course he meant what he said, as he invariably did. But it is also not incredible, in spite of Sir T. E. Colebrooke, that, having retired from India with what for him was a competence, he allowed his country-gentle- man temperament to have its own way.

But it is precisely such a temperament as this that rises to the height of emergencies. Whatever Monntstuart Elphinstone did, he did admirably. There probably never was a better "all-round" Anglo-Indian than he. He first showed what he was made of when, in the first Mahratta war, be acted as the political adviser of Sir Arthur Wellesley, and was present at the battle of Assaye and the siege of Gwalighnr. The future Duke said Elphinstone ought to have been a soldier instead of a civilian, and the eulogy implied in this remark from one not prone to excess in the way of praise was fully justified in the next Mali-

* Life of the Hon. Mountstuart Eiphinstone. By Sir T. B Colebrooke, Bart., 2 vols. With Portraits and Maps. London: John Murray. 1824.—Selec- tions from the Minutes and other Official Writings of toe Hon. Mane tat tuart Elphinetone. With an Introductory Memoir. Edited by George W. Forrest, MA., Deco= College. London : Richard Bentley and Son. 1384.

ratta crisis, when Elphinstone, as Resident at Poonah, had not only to baffle the intrigues of the treacherous Peishwah, Bajee Rao, but to rout the troops that that potentate had at his command. If ever a civilian won a battle, kIonntstuart

Elphinstone won the battle of Kirkee, on November 5th, 1817. He had to show capacity other than of the military sort in his embassy to Cabal in 1808, and subsequently as Administrator of the Deccan and Governor of Bombay; but he was admittedly not less successful. Then, there have been few better writers of State papers. His Minute on Education, which Mr. Forrest

republishes, will stand comparison with anything that has been written on the same subject since. His work on Cabul has not yet been superseded. His history of India during the Hindoo and Mahomedan periods must always command respect, if only for the modesty of the writer, and his conscientiousness, according to his lights ; although, as Mr. Forrest says, "he was unfortunately no Sanskrit scholar, and consequently the Hindoo period is the most unsatisfactory portion of his book." Elphin- stone was, considering the times in which he lived and the opportunities that offered themselves to him, a successful and a rapidly successful man. Yet success never turned his head, or hardened his heart, or deadened his conscience. To the last, he was as modest and as sensitive to any offence against virtue or decorum as in his youth. Sir T. E. Colebrooke quotes an account of him during his governorship by Mr. John Warden, a gentleman who was associated with him officially, which is interesting as an "instantaneous photograph" of his character :—

" He had a public breakfast every morning, and never left the room as long as one man desirous of speaking to him remained, but after that he was invisible to all but his suite. I have been associated in the same relation with Sir John Malcolm, Lord Clare, Sir Robert

• Grant, and manj good men of business ; but Mr. Elphinstone was the best. His industry was such that he took as much pains about a matter of five rupees as with the draft of a treaty. He had the pen of a ready-writer, his minutes being written off quickly and without erasure. After luncheon, he took a short siesta, and in the afternoon read Greek or Latin ; and I have been called to him sometimes as late as six o'clock in the evening, and remained till there was only time left to stroll for half an hour before an eight o'clock dinner; at ten he rose from the table, and, reading for half an hour in his own room, wept to bed. Although surrounded by young men, be never suffered the slightest indecorum, and if any one after dinner indulged in a double entendre, he would not say anything, but, pushing back his chair, broke up the party In the midst of many striking excellences, that which placed him far above all the great men I have heard of was his forgetfulness of self and thoughtfulness for others."

There have been in the Civil Service of India men of more im- posing and brilliant personality than Elphinstone, men who have done more remarkable work in consolidating the British Empire ; but it may be doubted if a better example for the civilian of the future has been afforded than by him.

We have said that though ample justice has now been done to Monntstuart Elphinstone, it has been done in a somewhat ponderous fashion. Little exception can indeed be taken to Mr. Forrest's volume, which consists of a collection of Elphinstone's official writings, to which a brief memoir is prefixed; but Sir T. E. Colebrooke, although a thoroughly reliable and judicious biographer, should have taken more pains in condensing the letters and other papers placed at his disposal. Elphinstone's private life seems to have been a singularly uneventful one. Born in 1779, he was the son of the eleventh Lord Elphinstone, of the Scotch Peerage, and Governor of Edinburgh Castle. We have glimpses of a high-spirited boy learning revolutionary songs of the French prisoners confined in the Castle; but by the time he reached eighteen he was absorbed by India, public life, and study. Sir T. E. Colebroke has no tale of adventures or pas- sions to tell. The only " sin " that Elphinstone seems to blame

even himself for was a tendency to be forward and disputatious in society; and his journal details in an almost ludicrous fashion his efforts to conquer this tendency by taking less and lese wine at table. Whatever leisure he had from public work he devoted

to study. He was as insatiable a reader as Macaulay himself, and very nearly as omnivorous. Here is a typical day in his life, when he was about thirty, as recorded in his private journal :—

" Bead 300 lines of the Antigone.' Breakfasted. Put my papers in order. Set off in my palanquin for Hall. On the way finished Mackintosh. Be is eloquent and acute, but inexperienced and enthusiastic. Also read some of Page's 'History of the French Revolution.' At the Hall ordered repairs. Read an Idyll of Theocritus, and Jenkins read aloud almost the whole fifth book of Homer. At five rode back ; dined. In bed, read Locke on 'Liberty and Necessity."

Elphinstone's letters, the most interesting of which are to his b3som friend, Edward Strachey—and very lively and descriptive letters they are—are studded with classical, and especially with Greek quotations. Even on the eve of a battle such as that of Assaye, on which depended the fate of the British Empire in India, not to speak of himself, we find him reading, writing, and quoting. As soon as he was relieved of his work in India, and had visited the countries consecrated by his favourite authors, he settled down to study. It is well that the life of a man who gave himself up so completely to public duty and to the highest of private pleasures should be clearly set forth. But it must be confessed that Sir T. E. Colebrooke gives us too much ; the best of letters become tedious. He ought, above all, to have taken much less space than he has done to telling the story of Elphin- stone's last years in England, as there is but little that is re- markable in it Scarcely any light is thrown on the character of the more eminent of Elphinstone's contemporaries, although he met some of them in metropolitan society. We do not re- member, however, to have seen two such very different men as Thomas Chalmers and Sydney Smith brought together before, as in the following :—

"Yesterday, while at breakfast, I received a note from Anne Elphinstone to go with her to hear Dr. Chalmers. We walked up to Pentonville and other places till it was time for the sermon. The Doctor's figure, manner, voice, and accent are abominable, but his sermon was full of good sense and good feeling, with much imagina- tion and beautiful language. It was delivered with an appearance of earnestness and sincerity that quite carried me along, and produced not only admiration, but enthusiasm. In the evening I dined at Sir G. Philips', where the subject was talked of, and Mr. Sydney Smith turned Chalmers into ridicule, admitting his good language, but pro- nouncing him unintelligible, and insufferably tedious. Most others thought differently. Mr. Smith himself showed 'off more than at Holland House, giving way on one occasion to his spirits, and keeping the whole company in a roar with a succession of jokes on the butler breaking a bottle in drawing the stopper. In general, however, though witty, he was quiet, and often he was even serious."

The chief State papers by Mountstuart Elphinstone which Mr. Forrest has collected and published, are the well-known Minute on Education written in 1824, a narrative of the events which led to the equally well-known conflict with the Peishwah, while Elphinstone was at Poonah, and a *port on the territories conquered from him. It is unnecessary to refer at any length to the contents of these papers, as they are almost ancient history by this time. Speaking of Elphinstone's writings on education, Sir T. E. Colebrooke says : "They were the work of a pioneer in the cause, who had to contend with and remove prejudices that are no longer felt ; and some of the appeals to first principles would be considered superfluous in the present day." But these papers are still models of clear, un-rhetorical statement. Elphinstone was in most respects, as we have already said, an example to Anglo-Indian officials; in none was he more so than in his attitude towards the native populations of Hindostan, which these papers place in a pleasant light.